


Disposable

by wisteriawall



Series: The 70th Hunger Games [2]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: 70th Hunger Games, Eye Trauma, F/M, Ficlet, Gen, Knives, One Shot, Prequel, Short One Shot, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:28:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26514457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisteriawall/pseuds/wisteriawall
Summary: Annie Cresta's maladaptive daydreaming lands her back in the games, reliving the worst minutes of her life: her district partner's beheading.
Relationships: Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair
Series: The 70th Hunger Games [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1927858
Kudos: 4





	Disposable

Her sleep had been fitful. A girl raised in luxury now forced to sleep on the hard ground of the earth rather than her bed, a hammock, or the cooling sand by the sea. She’d tossed and turned, but now was awake. Unable to move her arms while they were moved to be pinned behind her back. Eyes shot open as she was yanked to a kneeling position, all traces of sleepiness gone away.  
⠀  
The people standing around her— her allies— looked terrifying in the artificial sunrise. Disgusting halos of flames and hellfire encircle their heads rather than the usual golden glow of the early morning sun. It didn’t help that they were all slightly blurry to begin with, she’d lost her glasses a week ago. Fear pulsed through her as she took note of the people surrounding her. The pair from One was still alive: Valor and Opaline. Tall, strong, and with an alarming snarl to their chapped lips. Juno, from Two, was also there, clearly, the hands locked tight to her forearms.  
⠀  
It was Valor that held Braon, her own district partner, just like she was. They were allies. Why were they turning on each other now, when people were still left? They shouldn’t have gone to bed at the same time.  
⠀  
Aine was small— by far the smallest of the pack. But that had meant she was fast, agile, the one they’d send out to snatch things when it needed to happen secretly. To tiptoe around, climb trees, and read the stars for directions. She was an asset, why were they doing this? Braon, on the opposite end of the spectrum, was big and strong. Good for hard labor, dragging things around, helping to set up camp. They’d gotten respectable scores— Annie, especially, given that she hadn’t trained— and now they would be thrown away after they had served their purpose.

The other three are speaking, but she can’t hear them. Laughing, even. Taunting the struggling fish out of water that grunted and whined as they tried to escape the arms of their captors. And that was when Opal grabbed her friend’s head, immobilizing him. As soon as Annie saw the knife, she knew what would happen. The group of five was so close that she can hear his ragged breathing, the gulping as he tried to catch his last few breaths.  
⠀  
The blade shone against the too-bright first rays of morning, making Annie squint momentarily. She’s crying, and Braon was too. They’re children, 18 and 16 respectively, and they’re going to die. She felt an overwhelming sense of hiraeth as the pair looked at each other with tears in their eyes. The last moments that they would see each other, surely, and oh god, she missed home. What she wouldn’t give to wiggle her toes in wet sand or curl up at her mother’s side and have her head stroked like a child. God, she wanted to feel again.  
⠀  
The metal of the knife touched his throat, and Annie tried to look away though her head was forcibly held in place. Juno was forcing her to watch— this was all a sick, twisted game to her, and Annie was just a pawn. Disposable.  
⠀  
The next few seconds feel like hours. The blade drags across Braon’s exposed neck, surely severing his carotids and trachea, and blood sprays out profusely. Annie screams. The hot, irony liquid covers her face and mouth, which would’ve made her vomit were her stomach not completely empty. It couldn’t have been a minute before she heard the cannon go off, and her heart dropped down to the core of the Earth. She was still sobbing, watching as her friend was dropped to the ground like slaughtered cattle.  
She doesn’t make the decision of her own accord, however, Aine Cresta will still go down in history. Her body filled with adrenaline and rage, a different woman posessing her body. What happened next was not her work, but an entirely different being. Juno was taken off guard by the forcefulness by which she pulled herself away, still laughing and talking with the pair from one, having seemingly decided that Annie could be forgotten for the moment and dealt with when they saw fit.  
⠀  
Within an instant she’s up, unkept fingernails clawing at the girl who made her watch her friend die. Fingers scoop into the eye sockets of the beautiful girl (if Braon would lose his chance at an opened casket, she would too), nails scratching without mercy and yanking with all her might. When Annie came to again, just a moment later, she’s in shock at the sight of a girl screaming in pain, eyes dangling out of their sockets, still attached and hanging by a thread—

  
⠀ “Can you please stop and listen to me for a second?”

Words drag her back, and she opened her eyes. Were they not already open? The person who had spoken to her is so familiar that his voice is music to her ears. Finnick. His face comes into focus, all warmth and sea green eyes and messy hair, surrounded by a much less impressive world of gray walls and dry air. There must have been people around them— the scent filling her nose suggested they were at a meal— but she can’t focus on that. There was only them.

⠀ “Sorry, I’m here.”


End file.
